Mostly tangential and I apologize: Regarding heading based on topics for isms, we've had a debate amongst fandomnews admins about that issue. The general approach seems to be to group things along that lines, rather than fandom specific issues. We've tried to flip that and use fandom specific or some other heading (conventions, fanzines, legal issues, publishing news, fansite news, polls, scholarships, charity efforts). We use the general meta heading for posts that feel like they leave behind a specific fandom's internal politics enough to have crossover appeal or where the topic is intentionally broad or multifannish.
This is problematic where we get to the isms. There might be a Glee post that discusses disability issues. Should we move it out from Glee because of the isms in the post? Even if the isms about the topic are very much related to Glee and the audience may not be wider for it? This issue gets really problematic when we start thinking about sports; authors often talk about ism related issues that deal with multiple sports. Sometimes, authors address isms aren't often looked at by media fandom and we occassionally feel like we should be activist editors by moving them to the general meta category. (Racism, feminism and religious issues in sports are the big ones that we see.) Do we want to be that activist in our selection by doing that or should we leave those posts with a sports specific header where people who dismiss sports may refuse to read it because duh! sports!? We still haven't figured out how to address this organizational issue.
We occassionally pull out posts, if it looks like a major kerfluffle, the kerfluffle has been named, the issue looks like it will be covered on multiple days. We also pull out if we notice other newsletters are pulling out or they only include links about that topic on a day. This can just make finding links easier. For example, there were a few days when, if we had posted the slash debate related links in the general meta issue, it would have completely overwhelmed the general meta section. We were concerned that people would see a few spread in and assume they were all about that topic, which they clearly weren't. We see these pull outs as less about isms and more about easily finding specific content that is getting a lot of press with the comm's target audience.
The whole practice of organizing is a political one. It can just be really difficult to find a balance that works to help accomplish the stated goals.
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2010 01:41 pm (UTC)This is problematic where we get to the isms. There might be a Glee post that discusses disability issues. Should we move it out from Glee because of the isms in the post? Even if the isms about the topic are very much related to Glee and the audience may not be wider for it? This issue gets really problematic when we start thinking about sports; authors often talk about ism related issues that deal with multiple sports. Sometimes, authors address isms aren't often looked at by media fandom and we occassionally feel like we should be activist editors by moving them to the general meta category. (Racism, feminism and religious issues in sports are the big ones that we see.) Do we want to be that activist in our selection by doing that or should we leave those posts with a sports specific header where people who dismiss sports may refuse to read it because duh! sports!? We still haven't figured out how to address this organizational issue.
We occassionally pull out posts, if it looks like a major kerfluffle, the kerfluffle has been named, the issue looks like it will be covered on multiple days. We also pull out if we notice other newsletters are pulling out or they only include links about that topic on a day. This can just make finding links easier. For example, there were a few days when, if we had posted the slash debate related links in the general meta issue, it would have completely overwhelmed the general meta section. We were concerned that people would see a few spread in and assume they were all about that topic, which they clearly weren't. We see these pull outs as less about isms and more about easily finding specific content that is getting a lot of press with the comm's target audience.
The whole practice of organizing is a political one. It can just be really difficult to find a balance that works to help accomplish the stated goals.